Friday, September 17, 2010

Best Linux Distro for 3D Performance

There is one question all new Linux users ask themselves at one point or another:

Which Linux distro do I want to use?

The answer to the question is different for everyone and varies depending on what you are doing with your Linux box. One thing I think many users fail to consider (or perhaps don't care about) is the level of 3D performance their distro gets. You may think that your choice of distribution does not matter in this area, but you will soon see it very much does.

All of the tests where run on clean, fully updated install of each distribution. They use the stock kernel each of the distributions provides. Desktop effects where turned off in all cases.

The Results:Well, being a math guy, I firmly believe the numbers speak for themselves. So here are the results of the three benchmarks (higher is better - click on image to enlarge):

As you can see the scores of most of the Linux distros are fairly close (within 3% of the number one), with one exception: Ubuntu. It appears that of all the wonderful improvements Canonical has been making to Ubuntu, 3D performance is not one of them (10.10 scored higher than 10.04, but only by a small amount). It is hard to get the exact numbers by reading a histogram so here are the scores in numerical form:

Across all three tests Chakra scored the highest (With PCLinuxOS and Sabayon in close second and third). Ubuntu 10.04 was at the very bottom (over 10% behind Chakra). While I think Ubuntu is a great distro it appears that if you are a Linux Gamer, you are better off using a non-Ubuntu distro.

~Jeff HooglandPlease note while these benchmark scores presented are accurate to the best of my abilities, they only represent my personal hardware and software configurations. Your results on your own system(s) may vary (and if they do, please share them!).

34 comments:

I would think the distro you choose is not relevant to the raw performance you get from specific drivers and configurations. Also, your bar graphs are pretty misleading; they simply start off at 2700 without a breaking symbol and makes it look like Ubuntu performs half as well as the other distros.

@Sumant Those are the default graphs OpenOffice Calc made for the data I gave it. Sorry if you feel they are miss leading, but the y axis is clearly labeled and I state that Ubuntu is only 10%ish lower than the others.

@Yossarian UK "All of the tests where run on clean, fully updated install of each distribution. They use the stock kernel each of the distributions provides. Desktop effects where turned off in all cases."

Ubuntu Lucid uses older Mesa than all other distros it has been benchmarked against here but I expected Maverick with newer MESA to do better so thats a surprise, tests done at Phoronix show Lucid to be at par or slightly slower than most other distros in terms of 3D performance.

Huh... Nice to see some benchmarks actually comparing different linux distro's instead of just 'this one is faster because...'

...because, well, it's part of their philosophy, 'mmkay?

Anyways, I'd love to see something about how Slackware compares (picking the faster desktop environments that come with it and such, as Slackware doesn't 'default' as much as other linux distros).

Maybe I'll rerun some of the tests you made to see if hardware makes a difference when comparing various distro's 3D performance, since I went with AMD and ATI (2.8 x6 processor, IGP Radeon 4290) instead of Intel and Nvidia.

I quote:"Canonical has been making to Ubuntu, 3D performance is not one of them (10.10 scored higher than 10.04, but only by a small amount)"

I don't have much experience with Linux's guts but i don't see how performance can be improved by Canonical. X as far as i know is not developed by them, maybe they just contribute, plus the video drivers also not made by them. How can they work on this ? The only thing they can probably do is optimize compilation or remove unused stuff.In my experience proprietary drivers from Nvidia for linux are the best out there. Comparing with ATI which are a piece of crap I can say these guys are doing a good job.

Im confused....how come Ubuntu 10.10 smashes fedora 13 for me, is it because i have an I7 processor and kernel 2.6.35 works better with it? fedora 14 has that kernel but i cant get broadcom and nvidia to work right on it

did you use the same kernel version on all of them? on my laptop, i get poor performance with kernel 2.6.35 with ubuntu, about 45 fps average in tremulous, but by using any other kernel, specifically kernel 2.6.36.2, i get 60 fps average in tremulous and really noticeable performance increase in compiz and every single opengl app and games. not the 2d games though.

I would very much like to do away with windows and try something new - I'm a hardcore gamer, built a rig with:CPU Q9650 @~3.00 GHz6 GB DDR2 RAMNVidia 260GTX /w 1GB DDR3 VRAM--The problem is that 1] don't know jack about Linux and 2] Most high end games I own are Windows platform only - Could someone point me in the right direction?

Chakra is based on Arch Linux, and of course, Arch Linux really is the BEST Linux Distro.:) The biggest and most obvious hurdle is the propretary Microsoft Directx implementations. Unfortunately still, Side-by-Side, Windows games just look and feel better than the same "Wine" game on Linux. Until Gaming companies actually start utilizing OpenCL,..., MS directx games,..., will always be slightly better. :(

So you skew the appearance of the results by not starting the graphs off at zero, and you call yourself a 'maths guy'? Ubuntu doesn't do itself any favours (Unity, Gnome 3, etc) and is consistently behind, but it's not 50% behind like the graphs suggest, it's around 10%.

Well the numbers alone dont speak for themselves. You should at least account for the variance of the scores. Otherwise it's hard to tell if you just happened to draw a bad sample...

Also the scores of the individual benchmarks appear to be on different scales, so f.e. the sanctuary benchmark has a higher influence on the total score than the other two. Assuming all benchmarks are all equally important you should rather calculate the total score as the sum of the normalized scores.

Contact

About this Website

Thoughts on Technology is a collection of my own original writings about computers, hardware, software, and all forms of technology in the world around us today. It is no longer maintained, but you can find my latest thoughts on my new blog: Enlightenment Through Open Source.

I ask that you please do not repost my works without permission, but if you wish to please feel free to link back to my website here.

Donate

If you would like to support my projects with a financial donation you can do so via the button below.